


Snow and Alcohol

by PaleEmeraldNebula



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 22:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/905607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaleEmeraldNebula/pseuds/PaleEmeraldNebula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Metacrisis Doctor and Rose have left a roaring party in the middle of the night on New Years Eve. Both might be a little drunk, or a lot drunk. Their walk in the snow digs up an old memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow and Alcohol

The stars descended in a dance. It was only the night sky and the falling snow, but Rose could pretend. Closing her eyes, she was suddenly on the TARDIS, flying through the universe.

Though walking and looking up wasn't a very good idea, especially after a long evening of drinks and parties. She and the Doctor were passing through the lonely backwater streets of the city, right after midnight on their first New Year’s Eve together. They were wearing their very best, though what the Doctor considered his best, another pinstripe suit, barely counted.

He stumbled a bit, dragging her down with him since they were attached, hand to hand. She helped steady him as they continued on. “You alright?”

He beamed at her with a ridiculously lovely grin. “I’m perfectly perfect, fantastically fine. I am superbly splendid!”

She gave him a dubious smile in return. “You’re also dangerously drunk. How many did you have again? I don’t think a normal human could keep all that down.”

He scrunched up his face, trying to concentrate. “I can’t remember. That isn’t good is it? Oh, oh, this is very bad, terribly bad. I haven’t been this incapacitated by alcohol since the first Oktoberfest in 1810. That was when Prince Ludwig married Princess Therese of Sex-no, no, I mean Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. I still can’t recall what happened. I think an alien tried to impersonate the Prince. The alien might have been me.”

“If you can say that name without any problems you must not be that drunk.”

He stopped and quickly put his arm around Rose. His legs began to buckle and she caught him before he fell to the cold white pavement.  “No, I’m really that drunk. Rose-?”

She helped him stand straight again, keeping her hands on his chest. She could feel him sway and then he leaned his weight on to her palms. He started staring at her with a heated, wanting expression. She couldn’t help but let a bubble of giggles escape. “Gotcha. Think you can make it home like this or should we look for a hotel?”

The Doctor turned his head away, looking down the street, furrowing his brows in mock defeat. “Well, just to be safe, it might be best to find a hotel nearby. Don’t want to scare your mother with my drunkenness, now do we?”

“Oh, you’re full of it. You just want to go to a hotel for a shag don’t you?”

He looked back at her, with a half hearted indignant expression. “How can you say that? No, really, just out of the blue like that? Where did you even get that idea?”

“Like I haven’t picked up your clues since we’ve started shagging. For a bloke Doctor, you’re rubbish at being subtle when you want sex.”

“Don’t you think this discussion is better suited for another time and place, preferably another time, a far away time, nowhere near here, maybe a couple years away?”

“There’s no one around! If you want to begin the year shagging until the snow melts might be a good time to talk about your very bad attempts at dropping hints.”

“If you can pick up on them so well, then there is nothing really to talk about, is there? So shall we be off to the Hotel?”

She shook her head while giving him an incredulous grin. She stretched out her neck to give him a quick peck on the lips. “You’re impossible, did you know that?”

He returned her silly grin. “And you like me that way.” He leaned just a bit closer to her, forcing Rose to bend her elbows as he put more of his weight on her hands.  The warmth of his breath from his lips caressed the skin of her face. “I bet we’re going to have a really great year.”

“Yeah?” She gently bit her tongue, resting it in the corner of her mouth, ready for a proper second New Year’s kiss. Right when the tip of his lips touched hers, she pushed him back. A jab of forgotten memories flooded her mind. She stared at her Doctor, searching his shocked face for a sign he knew what caused her hesitance.

“Rose?”

Their grins disappeared, replaced by troubled eyes and creasing brows. She blinked a few times, trying to fully form the lost memory. “Say that again?”

He raised one eyebrow to the request. “Rose?”

“No, before that.”

“I bet we’re going to have a really great year?”

“That! That’s the second time you said that to me. On New Years, before I even met you!”

“I don’t remember ever saying that phrase to you. Wait, when? Before we met? When I wore leather?”

“No, you as you are now, telling me I’m going to have a really great year.”

“That wasn’t me. Well, that wasn’t this me, or the previous me. Might have been the other me, the full Time Lord me, after dropping us off here, in this universe.” The Doctor stood straight and steady on his own two feet. “If I went back into your timeline and risked our history that could only mean one thing.”

“What? What does it mean?”

“I’ve regenerated.” The Doctor swayed again and Rose caught him this time in a tight embrace.

They stayed still as the snow fell around them, so gentle and silent before, now a storm of pounding icy drops. Rose gripped the Doctor tighter, unshed tears blurring her vision. He wrapped his trembling arms around her, burying his face into the nook of her shoulder.

Once the cold began to seep through their clothes, he grabbed her by the shoulders and searched her face. His breath smelled of cocktail and beer. “You’re thinking about him.”

“Of course I am. He-he’s died. He could have been alone. He must have been, if he went back to see me.” She wiped her face of any tears, trying to remain calm. “I wasn’t there for him.”

He sniffled loudly and took a few ungraceful steps backwards. He grabbed his own knees for support, huffing at the effort to keep upright. “Ah, well, I’m sure he’ll find someone. The good news is now I’m my own man. No one has this face but me.” He grunted as he stood straight and squared his shoulders. “Regeneration is a tricky process; never know what you’ll get. He could have yellow crooked teeth, or a bald head and sagging skin, might even be short and smelly.”

Any tears she might have had dried up and an angry heat wave rushed through her blood. She frowned as she asked sardonically, “Jealous of yourself?”

The Doctor gradually stepped forward and grabbed her by the waist, pressing her body to his possessively. “You’re thinking about him. I don’t like it. I’m the Doctor-”

“I know.” She tightly held onto his arms, staring at him.

“All right, correction, I’m  _your_  Doctor. Look at me. I’ve got sideburns, very good hair, I’m thin and tall. Some call me pretty. I’d prefer handsome, but I suppose I shouldn’t dismiss the compliment. I’ll always have this face. And you like it. I know what Cassandra said.” He tilted his head closer to hers, lowering his voice, staring right back at her. “I’m yours, forever.”

“I’m yours too.”

“He’s not me anymore.”

The air stilled around them as the Doctor continued to hold her close. His eyes bore into her, waiting for a reply. She held his gaze for as long as she could. Finally she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and neck, pulling his head back down to her. She held him as the snow continuously fluttered down from the sky, leaving their hair and clothes sprinkled with white dots.

“You’ll always be him and he’ll always be you.” Rose leaned back to see his face, touching his cheek as she continued on. “But I love you. The jealous thing is right cute, only really not necessary, so you can stop with the posturing.”

“I’m not. Jealous, I mean. I’m not jealous.”

“You are.”

Instead of continuing the fight, his hardened expression softened. His body relaxed and his hands gradually moved lower, barely skimming her bum. He let out a long sigh and leaned in for a chaste kiss on the lips. Instead of letting him free, Rose deepened the kiss, sliding her tongue in and out of his mouth. He greedily accepted and continued on, licking her bottom lip as their mouths moved in unison.

In the gentle and quiet night, his hungry lips warmed her better than any coat she owned. He leaned forward slightly, tilting her back. His hands began to roam, trying to find a way to her skin. Her dress was short and he quickly began to lift the fabric, gripping her hips, playing with her knickers.   

She broke the kiss quickly, “So you’re not jealous?”

“Are we back to this? I thought that discussion was over?”

“You’ve had too much to drink. We have the rest of the night, maybe a good long walk is in order?”

“Walk? Walk? Really, walking?” His disappointed grimace suddenly broke out into a bright grin. “Nah, walking‘s too plain. Doesn’t really get the heart going or the blood flowing! What we need is-” He grabbed her hand and took one step back. With his face just inches from hers, he continued, “to run.”

He took off in a frenzied rush with no clear destination, barely able to stay upright, pulling her along gleefully. She broke her heel but didn’t care and broke off the other. She laughed at his horrible attempt to run fast while wobbling. “Are you sure you can do this?”

“Of course I can. Momentum should keep me from falling!”

Another toothy grin passed between them as they ran down the streets, heading deep within the city, past the bars filled with parties, past the closed shops and busy traffic. Fireworks exploded in the sky, colorful reminders of the New Year. The snow continued to dance as it descended and Rose imagined she was back with a Time Lord, who would never be lonely again.

**Author's Note:**

> Not Beta'd.


End file.
